Meet the Startups | Food Chain Accelerator 2024

Bemuse is a UK-based, female-led company manufacturing innovative wine alternatives fermented from honey. “A fresh take on an old classic” – Bemuse has reimagined the world’s oldest brewed drink – mead – to create a refreshing, non-alcoholic, sparkling, low-calorie drink for modern tastes. Using honey and a natural fermentation process, there are four distinctive flavors which can be enjoyed on their own, paired with food or served as mixers with other drinks. Bemuse is dedicated to raising awareness for and contributing to bee conservation, supporting responsible beekeepers and urban greening. The owners of Bemuse, Anna Chalov and Nataliya Peretrutova say they “want a different way of building a business – one that is not only about profit, but which has ethical values that drive a sustainable and responsible operation.”

Creating unique, sustainable coffee using upcycled date beans. From dates to your cup, Daffee is an innovative, nutrient-rich, sustainable and caffeine-free date seed coffee. We all love coffee, but its production can lead to deforestation, posing a threat to our environment. The founders’ awareness about food waste created an opportunity for the future of coffee alternative culture. Dates have great nutritional value, but the beans of the date are normally thrown away (both by producers and private consumers). Using these beans as an opportunity, Daffee upcycles and roasts date beans and grids them as an alternative to coffee – using a production process that closely resembles that of coffee. Headquartered in Amsterdam, and with raw materials sourced from sustainable farms in the Middle East and North Africa, their transparent supply chain ensures ethical practices and minimal environmental impact.

Re-imagined pasta-making through using rare, nutritious ancient grains, and BreadCycle pasta upcycling surplus bread from local bakeries. Pasta, cereal, and baking essentials—all crafted from ancient grains and botanicals. Sourced from regenerative farmers, Gabanna Foodworks’ ingredients promise superior flavors while supporting biodiversity and nature-positive agriculture. The Rotterdam startup is fighting monocrop culture and biodiversity loss, advocating for localized food processing as a crucial intervention, promoting robust, regenerative, and healthy food futures centered around short food chains.

Unlocking the full potential of grass – Did you know 30% of the Netherlands is grassland? Cows and other ruminants are the only animals that can eat grass. Unfortunately, the cow does not use the wealth from the grass very efficiently. 50-75% of the nutrients from grass are not used by the cow and are expelled in the form of manure and gasses. Grassa‘s solution is simple: unlocking grass and extracting precisely those nutrients that the cow would otherwise waste. Through their facilities in Afferden, Grassa uses the extracted nutrients – grass, protein and sugars – to make food for other animals and, in the long term, for humans. The remaining unlocked grass is a high-quality and sustainable roughage that can be fed to dairy cattle in place of silage. They want to challenge the status quo with their vision to diversify farmers as future plant-based protein producers.

Grovero makes MiniGro micro farms for innovative urban farming solutions, designed to cultivate fresh, nutritious greens – using up to 90% less water. Having started their journey in Amsterdam, this innovation addresses the needs of home cooks who lack access to planting space, restaurant dining rooms requiring fresh herbs for their menu, upscale cocktail bars, and corporate kitchens who want to efficiently and sustainably grow microgreens, herbs, edible flowers, and leafy greens. These microfarms ensure high-grade produce with every harvest, effectively reducing the harmful chemicals needed to grow the plants compared to traditional greens farming.

The Kolenkitkots foundation trains, supports and mentors talented women who are distanced from the formal labor market. Are you an experienced home cook with talent to spare? By offering training, support and facilitating catering assignments for talented female cooks in the Kolenkitbuurt of Amsterdam, women are guided to set up their own business and make the step out of long-term welfare dependency. The step to entrepreneurship is often too big to take independently, but throughout monthly meetings and individual coaching, the women develop into true professionals. In addition to catering, they learn to give cooking workshops, develop their own products and more.

The cacao fruit that hugs the seeds used to make chocolate are traditionally thrown away. Kumasi Drinks creates drinks and products from the cacao juice, fighting food waste and poverty. Since cacao is a superfruit “it’s strange to only eat the seeds (the cacao beans)” says the Amsterdam startup. Especially since the fruit is healthy, delicious, and an additional source of income for cacao farmers who often cannot make a decent living from just selling cacao beans.” This extra use of their raw material (cacao fruit) produces extra income for farmers by using the cocoa fruit pulp, and by doing so they are able to offer farmers up to 30% more income. Fun fact: the flavor of the juice is actually not like chocolate – think apple-lychee.

54% of food waste in the Netherlands happens on farms (17%) and processing (37%). Nimble Processing transforms and processes produce and surplus from small to medium-sized nature inclusive farmers into value-added products. Starting with their first product line “Roffa Roots”: fresh, precut, vegetable mixes with a seasonal recipe database. “Sustainable farmers need help to access new markets and on the other hand, chefs want to source better and more local ingredients as well as save time due to being short-staffed. Nimble brings nature inclusive products into the buzzing urban kitchens and the people they serve.” By identifying the existing gap between nature-inclusive farmers cultivating high-quality, sustainable produce and the ability to get this produce to the right consumers/businesses resulting in significant produce surplus. Based in Rotterdam, Nimble connects farmers with businesses, operating with a short food supply chain model to give a better price to farmers and be economically sustainable. They want to create a transparent profit model where farmers are price setters.

Ojoa gives waste a new purpose: health. By transforming imperfect fruits & veggies into easy-tasty-natural drinks & snacks, they are reducing the amount of produce that gets sent to waste due to it looking a little ‘wonky’ (meaning its appearance is outside of industry standards). The French startup aims to make healthy eating not just more accessible, but also more circular by challenging the amount of food waste in Europe.

How can we use European seeds to future-proof plant-based dairy? Time Traveling Milkman uses European sunflower seeds mixed with water to create creamy plant-based dairy alternatives. They believe the oleosomes (oil droplets) found in sunflowers ‘have an untapped potential in dairy alternatives’, and are driven by a mission to redefine the boundaries of plant-based indulgence. Born as a spin-off from the prestigious Wageningen University & Research, they are challenging the food industry by ‘creamifying’ dairy alternatives, embracing bold ideas, and championing sustainability.